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Halep stings Wozniacki in New Haven semifinal By Roger CleavelandRepublican-American

NEW HAVEN

Everything appeared positioned to allow the New Haven Open to showcase the best possible pairing for its final: the defending champ vs. the four-time winner.

Everyone wins. The tournament gets the marquee matchup it desperately needs in a year in which attendance is lagging and sponsorship agreements end leaving the future in doubt.

The players get a terrific tune-up for the U.S. Open, which begins in a couple days. And the fans get to see a matchup between two quality Top 10 players.

Then Princess of New Haven abdicated her rights to the crown unceremoniously to ruin that script. Caroline Wozniacki, the four-time champ with a 23-2 record here, lost in the semifinals for the second year in a row, this time 6-2, 7-5 to No. 23-ranked Simona Halep in front of 3,524 fans Friday night.

Wozniacki played well in spurts, but Halep was very solid throughout and spectacular at times. She dictated pace with harder, deeper baseline shots that kept Wozniacki running side to side. Wozniacki ran Halep around, too, but the young Romanian came up with some big forehand winners on the run that turned the match.

"She takes the ball really early," Wozniacki said. "She forced me to play some shots that I didn't want to play. I really tried to change my game up a little bit or tried to go for a little bit more. I tried to play a few high balls, some dropshots, trying to change up the pace a little bit, go harder, put more spin on it. Today just wasn't my day."

Last year's winner, Petra Kvitova, not only won her semifinal match to earn a spot in this year's title match, but she did so in dominating style with a 6-0, 6-1 victory over Klara Zakopalova.

That didn't bode too well for the quaint gathering of 2,735 fans at the afternoon session because they got to see only 50 minutes and 36 seconds of

See HALEP, Page 9B

non-competitive, singles tennis.

The crispness, power and focus with which Kvitova played offered plenty of encouragement for today's title match, however. Granted, it came against a relatively unknown, No. 33-ranked player in the world, but Kvitova proved in 2011 when she won Wimbledon that she can perform as good as anyone in the world when she's on.

She delivered Friday while Wozniacki failed to do so. She teased the fans here with a sensational performance Thursday night to beat talented American Sloane Stephens but couldn't back it up.

"It's a very empty feeling in a way, because I've been so used to winning here and I love winning," Wozniacki said. "It's been so much fun. I tried everything, but you know, it didn't go my way. So obviously it's a bit disappointing."

Beating Halep to help salvage what has been a luckluster tournament to this point isn't as simple as it sounds these days.

Halep has been the hotter player over the last three months. She's posted a 28-5 record on tour over her last nine tournaments dating back to Rome in mid-May and has won three tournaments. Over that same span, Wozniacki played in eight tournaments and posted an 11-8 record with Friday's semifinal appearance being the deepest run.

Certainly on Friday Halep was the better player. She was more fluid in chasing down balls, had more winners, made fewer unforced errors, and she broke Wozniacki's serve six times. She attributed her success to a coaching change that has allowed her to enjoy the game more while playing more confidently and aggressively.

Today's 3 p.m. final against Kvitova may lack star power, but it should be an interesting competitive match.

Despite being extended to three sets in each of her first three matches here, Kvitova seemed fresh Friday with plenty of good tennis left in her. She was completely in rhythm in beating Zakopalova, who didn't win a game until the 12th game of the match. Each point scored against her seemed to deflate her even more to the point that she almost looked like she wanted to cry as Kvitova was untouchable.

"She just played fantastic tennis today without any mistakes," Zakopalova said. "I think everything was working for her, so I have to just congratulate her. She can beat anybody with this game. She's playing really flat and fast. She's serving good, moving good. There's no mistakes at all."

It remains to be seen if Halep can deal with such a performance or if Kvitova can duplicate it. If both are on the top of their games, the tennis in the final could be fantastic.

In the end, New Haven tournament director Anne Worcester could be introducing Connecticut fans to a new champion who is rising young star in Halep. It's been a trademark of this tournament to discover such champions. But whether the unrecognizable Halep can help the tournament right now in its time of need seems questionable.

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